Garden Girl TV: Natural Insect Control with Diatomaceous Earth

Natural Garden Pest Insect Control Using Diatomaceous
eEarth So a lot of people ask me, Patti you are an
organic gardener, what do you do about all of this little bugs and slugs and all that
stuffs that farmers for so long had been trying to come back. Well, I have one of the most
amazing products that I discovered. It is actually been use for a really, really long
time and it is called Diatomaceous earth Now, Diatomaceous earth is actually fertilized
algae that is found in sedimentary rock and it forms of powdery substance pretty easily.
If you are asking what are you doing right now? Why are you watering your garden and
watering all the leaves of your garden? Well the reason why I am doing that because I am
going to spread the Diatomaceous earth or DE as also known on of my plants. And I want
my powder to stick to the leaves of the plants so they have to be moist; they have to have
water on them. In order for the dust to stick to the plants, now this is the Dayo Tomatoes
earth. This is actually a duster and what we use to dust the crops and let me show you
in here. That is the powdery substance, now this is a completely safe for humans and for
animals. So really do not have to worry about it getting you know into any other animals
that might be around and this is the fun part. [DEMO]
And you can also use it indoor, this is great if you have got dogs and in the summer time
they tend to get fleas you spread these all over there bedding and this is actually really,
really safe for human consumption and also animal consumption. Not that I would recommend
that you eat it but it is safe. Now Dayo Tomatoes earth, the powder of the fossilized algae
gets on to the insects and it is basically dehydrates them and they die. Of all you urbanized
out their who are suffering your apartments with cockroaches go and get some DE. This
is the organic all natural way to go to get the job done. I am Patti Moreno the Garden
Girl. Thanks for watching.

I would also suggest increasing your tolerance for bugs as part of an "integrated pest management" system. Our culture almost always exclusively looks for external solutions, when it's our mind (or cultural story) that is the biggest reason we've poisoned the entire planet.

We use diatomaceous earth before, but be careful about breathing in the dust, the silica it contains is harmfull for the lungs.
It's like tiny chards of broken glass. Silica sand is what you use to sandblast, but they wear respirators.

This stuff rocks and is so cheap. I take it internally for parasites (which we all have by the day). Note of caution, be careful not to dust too close to flowers. Can harm bees and hummingbirgs. Great video.

and its not totally safe. for instance you couldnt pay me to apply it as she does. you dont want that stuff in your eyes or lungs. is a legitimate inhalation hazard. please dont do what you see here, use a mask rated to handle particles the size of DE, seals around your nose and mouth, and i also recommend goggles.

PLEASE NOTE…If you are going to use diatomaceous earth then you MUST USE FOOD GRADE..diatomaceous earht!!!!
Otherwise it makes the plant unfit for human consumption…!
And use it sparingly and wisely…it kills the beneficial bugs such as bees and lady bugs.

One "fact" that is not exactly correct: diatomaceous earth is not "an algae found in sedimentary rock." It IS the rock. It is made from ancient deposits of billions of tiny diatoms (which ARE plant-like algae) that settled out of water onto the bottom when they died. It IS sedimentary rock, formed by these ancient plants and is still being formed today in both fresh and salt water.

my understanding is that u should use food-grade de, which costs a lot more, because the normal stuff will cut your lungs because of the way the molecules are, so, either use a mask while you're spraying or spend the big buks, once not air-borne it isn't dangerous…

you didn't mention that there's 3 different kinds of DE. the gardening kind, the kind you use in swimming pools and foodgrade. i use foodgrade DE on my animals. outside as well as inside. i sprinkle it on their food it keeps them worm free. i also use it in the house for bedbugs i just sprinkle it around the legs of the bed it will kill any small insect to about the size of a scorpion but it won't harm earthworms for some reason.i also use it in my worm bin

Nice video….. I have used DE for years and as several people have already mentioned be sure to use only FOOD GRADE diatomaceous earth. I eat it every morning and I feed it to my dogs and cats I also use it inside and outside of the house. I have a blog about DE and I get mine from EarthWorks……. diatomaceous(dot)net …. You'll have to replace the (dot) with a . for the link to work properly

@LucieLettuce If you get food safe diatomacious earth ( yes there are two types one used in comercial pest control:added harmful ingredients, the other is safe for human ingestion) it kills worms like no other and it works in animals and is also safe for humans to. Icky thought but most humans are infected with one type of parasite or another and never know it. Just a cool piece of info 😉

That stuff is not safe! This is used in the mixture that you sometimes lay tile on and we had a pipe flood our home which they had to rip the tile up and ground this substance up without masks mind you. I was upstairs and thought they were going to scrape it up and next thing I know my home was top to bottom in this stuff. They didn't warn us or cover anything and also ran our A/C so it kept cycling through our home.

@Pixyfun We didn't even know it was bad until myself and 3 year old and hubby were wheezing and skin was drying out and cracking and my daughter got a horrible fever. We had to call poison control and get a hotel.

This was my primary concern, as I am gardening organically but really don't want to kill the beneficial bugs, but I am being overrun with army worms and my manual pest control isn't keeping up with the hundreds and hundreds per plant on my twelve plants. I may have to do this to get a handle on it.

It is completely safe for earthworms, but not for bees. Many earthworm farmers put it in their worm beds to get rid of parasites. The earthworms eat it and it is no longer present in their castings once they digest it. Basically it acts like little razors, cutting into the exoskeleton of insects and drying them out from the inside. Look into Neem Oil. It is another way to repel insects that is quite effective.

Unfortunately, you are giving bad info. Organic Food Grade DE is amorphous silica and does not have shards of broken glass, sand, is not used to sandblast, and does not cause silicosis. Get your facts straight.

Kisinzcemm and rayunseltig – Unfortunately, you are giving bad info. Organic Food Grade DE is amorphous silica and does not have shards of broken glass or sand, is not used to sandblast, and does not cause silicosis. Get your facts straight. Vistit Freshwater Organics to see the MSDS.

I've worked with it for 13 years. Never worn a mask. Is it possible you don't have any idea what you are talking about? Crystaliline silica is very dangerous to breath, and can cause silicosis. But amorphous food grade DE will not cause silicosis. If one is more comfortable with a mask, fine. But In my experience, it poses a VERY low risk.

Bunny, you are mistaken. FOOD GRADE ORGANIC DE is NOT used in tile. That is crystalline silica – which IS dangerous. However, this video is clearly about amorphous silica. There is a HUGE difference. Learn the facts before you try to inform others.

I don't know what "die-O-ta-may-shuss earth" is, but "die-UH-ta-mAY-SHuss earth" is cool. Perhaps it would be wise to learn how to pronounce the item you intend to produce a video about….also dejavuchicka is correct… water blows the whole thing sky high. Lame video.

you should not inhale the dust, a mask should be used. the bugs dry up because the D.E. is razor sharp, the bugs climb over it, get cut , and dry out. I'm no pro but I suggest the mask or at the least be upwind.

If you dust blindly, you can kill anything with DE. However, bees are observed to avoid flowers with DE dusted on it. Bees are also covered with slick hairs to keep them from dehydration and vibrate their wings to get dust off.

A few tips for anyone else worried about harming beneficial insects: Dust early in the morning or late at night when most bees aren't working. Dust on calm days to avoid over-scattering. Dust only affected plants and don't dust everything blindly.

Supposedly, earthworms are not affected by DE like insects because they do not have exoskeletons. Some people add food grade DE (stress on food grade) to their worm bins to keep pests like mites from infesting the bin and worms eat it without being affected.

DE looses the cutting ability when wet, true. If you apply it dry, insects die faster. However, applying it to damp leaves like she did, or mixing it with water in a spritzer bottle applies an even and thick coating on leaves without too much wastage. You just have to wait for it to dry. Some people apply it early in the morning or late evening after dew has formed on leaves to save on water.

Well, if your plant is already crawling with bugs, dusting it dry would probably be a better idea.

Food grade DE is used in aquaponics. It can be mixed with soil because it can retain water and nutrients well like perlite and vermiculite. Fish in an aquaponic system can ingest it without harmful effects pretty much the same way as a cat or cow could.

I'm trying to figure out why you think it can kill fish unless someone dumps a truck load of it and cause blockage to their gills.

This stuff is great for killing of insects b/c it has microscopic sharp points that punctures the exoskeleton of bugs & the more they tread through it the more damage it does. It's the equivalent of a naked human walking though a forest composed of shards of glass. However, it is not safe to inhale b/c it does the same damage to your lungs. In terms of ingesting, as long as you rinse your food b4 you use it, there's almost no danger there.

I would never dust all my plants with DE because DE kills bees. We all need to take special care of bees and encourage them to visit. The last thing we want to do is kill them. There is no need to treat every leaf in the garden. Really bad advice for people and I hope they don't listen to it.

I used diatomaceous earth years ago in my library to get rid of silverfish and it worked! But I have since heard that it's illegal (except for use in cleaning pool systems?). I always wore a mask when applying it because it's bad for your lungs. We're talking about tiny slivers of rock! Not to mention the bee thing.

love your post and am going to share it with all the members of my community garden. I have found that DE did little to control roaches while boric acid powder does the trick. Also the reading I have done indicates that it poses little risk to bees but I am going to double check with our bee expert. Thanks again for the great video. I hope to see more from you

All types of diatomaceous earth are, to varying degrees, unsafe for human inhalation. Natural and food-grade DE can cause irritation of the mucous membranes of the nose and mouth; therefore, a respiratory mask should be worn when administering DE. Pool-grade DE is a respiratory hazard due to its crystalline silica content. This high concentration of crystalline silica is due to the partial melting of the DE; this melting and processing result in a substance that is carcinogenic and should not be inhaled or ingested.

I have started using DE on my vegetable garden because I have Aphids taking over. I also put some in a Tupperware container with aphids on leaves. It has been 24 hours and the Aphids are just as alive as when I put them in there? I'm frustrated the Aphids are infesting my entire garden.